Holding Up A Mirror To Your Soul
by TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel
Summary: Hermione finds she isn’t who she always thought she was, and searches for the truth. At the same time she and Harry are experiencing strange 'incidents.' Sixty years might have passed, but Grindelwald's actions are still affecting the world... WIP
1. Chapter 1 Hermione

**Title**: Holding Up A Mirror To Your Soul

**Author:** TardisIsTheOnlyWaytoTravel

**Story Summary: **Hermione isn't who she always thought she was, and enlists Harry's help in her search for the truth. Meanwhile the two of them have been experiencing strange incidents that are only increasing in frequency.

Sixty years later the world is still feeling the consequences of the actions of the Dark Lord Grindelwald, and one Albus Dumbledore…

AU, but references all seven books. Takes place

**Author notes:**

_This will not be that long a story; maybe five chapters or so? I have plans for it. The initial idea – re: Hermione's identity – was inspired by the fantastic _Once Might Have Been _by _Willow-Bee The Cat_, although that goes in quite a different direction._

_At some point I might rewrite this, but it's fine for now. It's a bit different to my usual stuff; I'm experimenting._

_

* * *

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HOLDING UP A MIRROR TO YOUR SOUL

CHAPTER ONE

* * *

_Dark winged things, moving in the dark… limbs rasping, the tapping of clawed feet, scraping on stone… and two jade eyes, luminous and glowing sickly green…_

Hermione woke sharply, and felt the urge to curse as she realised she'd just had another one of the dreams.

The 'Incidents,' as she and Harry called them, were happening more frequently the older that they got. The dreams were only the latest manifestation. Try as she might, Hermione had never been able to discover a clue as to what the Incidents meant, or why eavh experienced them.

Sighing, Hermione did her best to fall back to sleep.

**o0o o0o o0o**

Hermione had always liked the attic.

There was a skylight in the ceiling , as well as a ceiling light, so that the little room was always well-lit. As a child Hermione had spent many hours, crammed in between boxes sitting on the dusty floorboards, reading.

This summer she had finally convinced her parents to allow her to convert one corner of the attic to a makeshift study. Her room was too crowded these days, and she planned to move her desk up there and one of her bookcases.

As Hermione moved boxes, stacking them on top of each other, she paused at the sight of something she'd never seen before.

It was a small wooden chest, covered in years worth of dust. Curiously, Hermione opened it.

Sitting on top of everything else was a death certificate.

In the name of one Hermione Jean Granger.

Hermione's heart stopped. With trembling hands, she lifted it out, for a closer look.

Under date and location of death it said simply, _Twenty-fifth August 1981, St Thomas' Hospital London._ Hermione's gaze moved further down. Date of birth, 19 September 1979 – the date Hermione had always known as hers.

_Cause of Death: Respiratory illness._

The death certificate fluttered to the floor.

Hermione couldn't breathe, couldn't think, couldn't feel; it was as though everything had gone numb.

Most of the box was filled with photo envelopes. With shaking hands Hermione picked up one of the ones on top and opened it, pulling out a stack of photographs.

They were of a very small girl, only a toddler. Her hair was thick and bushy and her eyes were the same shade of brown as Hermione's, but she had a snub nose and a little pointed face like a small pixie.

Her father's nose and her mother's facial structure, Hermione thought, looking through the photos.

Small girl holding a ball towards the camera. Having a bath. Holding a fluffy bear nearly as big as she was. Fast asleep, curled up in a cot. Sitting on her smiling mother's lap, their physical similarities apparent.

Photo after photo of the girl that wasn't her.

The rest of the chest held medical records, childish scribbles that barely counted as drawings, and right at the bottom, a baby book. The sum of a life, cut short almost before it began.

Hermione carefully packed it all back into the chest and shut the lid.

She sank to the dusty floorboards, taking deep breaths. She didn't feel upset, didn't feel angry, just… empty. _I'm in shock,_ part of her mind noted clinically, but the rest of her was dizzy with the image of the little girl that wasn't her.

After an eternity Hermione drew herself up and went downstairs.

Her mother was in her study, catching up on paperwork.

"Mum?" Hermione asked, managing to keep her voice steady.

"Hmm?"

"Was I sick, when I was small? Sick enough to go to hospital?"

Her mother went still.

"Because there's a death certificate with my name on it in the attic."

Hermione moved closer.

"Mum?"

Emmeline Granger's eyes had gone oddly blank.

As Hermione watched, her mother blinked, her eyes cleared, and she went back to the paperwork.

"Mum?"

Emmeline jumped in shock and spun to face her daughter.

"Hermione? Goodness love, you gave me a fright! I didn't hear you come in."

The dread in the pit of Hermione's stomach deepened.

**o0o o0o o0o**

If there was one thing Hermione knew she was fantastically good at, it was research. Harry had once told her that when she was in the middle of a research project everyone else avoided walking too close to her lest her gravitational pull prove too great and pull them into the black hole of research as well, while Ron nodded vigorously in agreement. She smacked them both for that, but there was probably a certain amount of truth in it. Because when Hermione was in research mode, she could get things done that no one else could.

One of her first actions was to head to the British Library in London. She spent several hours going through newspaper records, looking through the obituaries and death notices. She found the death notice fairly quickly, but couldn't find any other information. Time to move on.

Her next stop was the church where the little funeral had been held. The minister was as helpful as he could be, but he'd only been there for the last five years, so he wasn't sure whether his help could be of any value.

"Don't you keep any kinds of records about these things?" Hermione asked desperately, looking despondent.

The minister frowned in thought.

"It's possible that my predecessor kept some," he said slowly. "The best person to ask would be Mrs Westley. I can give her a call and see if she's free, if you like."

"That would be excellent," Hermione said gratefully.

The minister shot her a sideways look.

"If you don't mind my asking, why is it that you are searching for this particular burial site?"

Hermione gave him a hard stare, but he simply looked curious, and he looked like someone she could confide in.

She decided to tell him the truth. It had been a sharp burning pain in her chest ever since she'd discovered the other Hermione's things, but there'd been no one she could tell.

"I found a chest, in the attic," she began painfully, "of things belonging to a little girl with my exact name, but the photos weren't of me, and there was a death certificate in there as well. I was used as a replacement for her, and I don't know who I really am or where I came from. I want to find out."

The minister looked shocked and appalled.

"You should notify the police," he said gently.

Hermione shook her head.

"Not until I know what's going on. I'm sure it's deeper than it looks, so – the first step is to find the real Hermione Granger," she said resolutely.

The minister's eyes were full of sympathy.

"I'll give Mrs Westley a ring. I'm sure she'll be happy to come down and help you." He laid a hand on her shoulder for a moment. "If you need any advice on his, or someone to talk to, you are welcome to come down here, or give me a call."

He went off to ring Mrs Westley.

She turned out to be a middle-aged cheerful woman who seemed to know about everything in the village. The minister explained the situation – not why Hermione was looking for the girl's grave, but the fact that she was hoping there was some record somewhere – and the woman turned warm, beady eyes on her.

"I think there should be some in the old hall." Mrs Westley's eyes reminded Hermione of a chicken's. "That's where most of the records are kept. It used to belong to the old lord, but when he died without heirs it was left to the village. Come on, then, lovey."

Sure enough, at the hall, after a lot of searching, they found the boxes that held the previous minister's things.

"He was minister here for thirty years," Mrs Westley explained, as she dumped another box on the table with the others. "When he died we found he had no family but us, poor soul. His things have been sitting in here for the past five years now, gathering dust. Ah well," he manner turned brisk, as she put the sorrow of the old minister's death behind her, "feel free to have a look through all these, just put them all back in the boxes and give me a yell when you're done."

She bustled away.

Hermione sat down, and began to go through the sad, pitifully small summary of a human life. For being there thirty years, the minister hadn't accumulated very much in the way of belongings.

The first couple of boxes were personal possessions; photographs, letters, items of sentimental value, books. Hermione's fingers itched at the sight of the old, cloth-bound books, but she put them aside instead of looking through them like she wanted to. The later boxes all proved to be records, of the minster's time at the parish. He'd clearly been a well-organised, somewhat anal-retentive person. For every wedding, baptism, funeral, last rites, that he had administered, he had carefully written down all the relevant details, from the parties involved to any details that might be considered relevant.

His notes were scrupulously thorough, and Hermione was impressed. She remembered what Mrs Westley had said, though, and wondered if his dedication was an attempt to fill in the absence of family.

Whether it was or not, she could respect his efforts.

Hermione went through the pile until she found the 1981 deaths book. Like the others, it contained details of funerals and other death-related duties. She flipped through it, squinting at the spidery handwriting, deciphering dates and names.

_31__st__ August 1981 Funeral Hermione Jean Granger_

Hermione's stomach knotted. She continued to read carefully, not letting her emotions disturb her veneer of calm. She fished out her notebook, wrote down the relevant details. Then she packed the books away, and went to ring the number Mrs Westley had given her.

**o0o o0o o0o**

Hermione decided to leave visiting the grave until tomorrow. She told herself that it was because she'd done enough today already, but in truth she couldn't bear to bring herself to do so yet. With every extra piece of evidence of the other Hermione's death, and thus life, it felt like pieces of her were being pulled painfully from her and falling away, leaving her unsure of who she was anymore.

That night she tried in vain to get to sleep, but found herself tossing and turning and staring unseeingly at the ceiling instead.

The discovery of the existence of Other Hermione had filled her with doubts – not only about herself, and her life, but about everything. Ordinarily Hermione knew everything's place in the world, but somehow she'd been shaken loose, and everything else with her.

Who am I? Hermione wondered. Where did I come from? Why was I placed with Mum and Dad, why was it necessary? Was I being cared for, or abandoned?

_Who am I really?_

**o0o o0o o0o**

The next day Hermione caught the Knight Bus again, this time to Brompton Cemetery.

It was beautiful, in its own, eerie way, and strangely peaceful. Plant life grew everywhere, while the stone monuments in the older sections spoke of peace, and of judgement, and an austere love that was uncommon these days. The expression on each statue was different, individual; one, of a young woman, sat staring into the distance with an expression of yearning, waiting.

Hermione found the place, eventually. A small cross marked the grave, engraved with an inscription. Hermione crouched down to read it.

_Our beloved, Hermione Jean Granger,_ it read. _19__th__ September_ _1979 – 25__th__ August 1981. _

Underneath it read,

_She will be in our hearts always._

Hermione couldn't help it. The tears spilled over.

A moment later a wave of absolute rage and fury surged forward, and she stood and began to pace because she had to do _something_.

Until now she'd mostly been looking at herself as the victim, but Other Hermione and her parents were victims just as much as she was. Her parents had loved their daughter dearly, it was clear, yet _someone_ had messed with their memories and the real Hermione Granger lay here, forgotten.

Unmissed, unmourned.

It was appalling.

She was _furious_.

Hermione turned to the grave marker and waved her wand fiercely, before striding from the cemetery.

Behind her a new line had been added to the inscription in a spiky, angry script.

_She will not be forgotten. Justice will be found._

**o0o o0o o0o**

Hermione's parents frowned as she lugged her bags downstairs.

She saw their expressions, and sighed.

"This is my world," she said, brushing errant strands of hair out of her face, in a voice that was unusually patient. "There are things going on that I need to sort out. I know I spend less and less time with you each summer, but I have to go. I'm sorry."

She wanted to tell them everything would be all right later on when it was all over, that she'd come home and stay there, but she couldn't. They weren't really her parents, and she didn't know what she'd find. Besides, there _was_ a war on, and her best friend was on the front lines. It was possible she could get killed.

Strangely, it didn't worry her that much.

"I love you," she told the people who thought they were her parents, because that much was true, and walked outside to catch the Knight Bus.

**o0o o0o o0o**

Despite Sirius' death, things at Grimmauld Place weren't that different from last summer.

"Hermione!" Ron greeted her with a big grin.

"Hello Ron," she greeted him, along with a hug. The tips of his ears turned pink as she hugged him.

"You have no idea how relieved I am to see you," Ginny spoke up. "I've been here for a week with only this lump for company. It'll be nice to have another girl around."

"Oi," Ron said.

"Any idea when Harry gets here?" Hermione asked matter-of-factly.

"Tomorrow, I think," Ron said, frowning. "Moody and some of the others are going to pick him up."

"Good," Hermione said. She smiled at them. Her smile was too bright, but she had to find something else to think about. "What's been going on so far?"

Ron shrugged.

"Not much."

**o0o o0o o0o**

Harry arrived that night.

Hermione was in the kitchen, telling Ron to clean up because his Mum nearly had dinner ready, when there was a familiar presence, green and dark.

Hermione whirled, to see Harry standing with his crooked smile.

"'Lo, Hermione, Ron."

"Harry!"

Hermione flew to him and threw her arms around his neck and clung, while Harry pulled her close so that she was pressed against his chest. Hermione simply stood and absorbed as much comfort as she could from his familiar feeling of dark and green and soothing dank stillness.

Harry didn't move or let go, just stood holding her, reassuring and calming. Despite the mercurial quality of his surface emotions, deep down his aura reminded her of a dark cave, serene but not undangerous. Harry was like that; he was safe, more or less, but could cause peril for the unwary.

Ron coughed loudly.

Hermione stepped back reluctantly. Ron had a scowl on his face, and Hermione sighed a little. Ron's jealousy issues got in the way of everything. She fancied him a bit, sure, but she wasn't interested if this was how he acted.

Hermione glanced up at Harry, her eyes serious. He quirked an eyebrow, and nodded slightly. He understood she had something serious she needed to talk to him about when he got the chance.

The two of them always had understood each other strangely well. They just felt… _right_ to each other.

"Nice to see you too, Hermione," he grinned. He turned to Ron. "Hey, mate."

Ron's expression lightened a little as he clapped Harry on the back, although he still looked a little suspicious.

Hermione sighed in relief. Harry was here. She'd finally have someone else who could help her figure out what was going on.

* * *

END CHAPTER


	2. Chapter 2 Harry

**Title**: Holding Up A Mirror To Your Soul

**Author:** TardisIsTheOnlyWaytoTravel

**Story Summary: **Hermione isn't who she always thought she was, and enlists Harry's help in her search for the truth. Meanwhile the two of them have been experiencing strange incidents that are only increasing in frequency.

Sixty years later the world is still feeling the consequences of the actions of the Dark Lord Grindelwald, and one Albus Dumbledore…

AU, but references all seven books. Takes place just before the beginning of sixth year, onwards.

* * *

HOLDING UP A MIRROR TO YOUR SOUL

CHAPTER TWO

* * *

Harry woke with a start.

For a moment he lay there, simply breathing, the impressions of the dream still at the top of his mind.

It had been dark, and cold, and somehow comforting... and there had been glowing eyes looking at him out of the darkness...

Harry tried to get back to sleep, but couldn't. Instead he rolled out of bed and padded downstairs to the kitchen. His feet made no noise on the stairs or in the hall, despite the way they creaked for everyone else. Tonks said it was slightly creepy the way he never made any noise.

Harry wasn't entirely surprised to find that the kitchen wasn't empty. Someone was already sitting at the table, sipping at a cup of hot cocoa. Another, full mug stood opposite her.

Harry slid into the empty chair and picked up the second hot cocoa. When he looked up, Hermione was gazing at him, looking as tired and unsettled as he felt.

"This can't keep going on."

Hermione had been the one to speak, but Harry felt just the same.

"I know. These dreams... they don't feel like dreams."

Harry had felt drawn to Hermione the first moment he'd seen her. She'd felt so familiar somehow, despite her bossy manner and the fact that he'd never seen her before in his life. That Halloween, when Harry had realised that she was in danger, he'd immediately gone to her rescue, dragging Ron along with him.

The two of them had always gotten along so well. And then, the strange things had begun...

It wasn't just dreams. It was the way they both saw the Threstrals from the time they were thirteen, Hermione in second year, Harry from third, despite never having seen someone's death. The way little eddies in the ambient magic caught their attention, the way the stillness could hold them.

The flutter of something dark and scuttling when the deathspell was cast, bringing swift death to the spider in fourth year DADA.

A thousand little things, all disturbing when put together.

"There's more than that," Hermione whispered. "Harry... something's not right." She took a deep breath.

"I was digging through the family records... Hermione Jean Granger died at almost two years old from a respiratory illness. I've seen the death certificate. I've even visited the grave. I tried to ask my parents about it, but they forgot. _Every. Time. I. Asked._ Eleven times. I think someone altered their memories, to make them forget their daughter had died... and then gave them another baby, to raise as their own."

Harry stared in shock, yet he wasn't as surprised as he should have been.

"I need you to help me find out who I am, and why I was left with the Grangers."

Harry leaned back, mind whirring, frowning slightly in thought.

"There's got to be a way to do it with magic," he said slowly. "Seeing how obsessed with blood and heirs the purebloods are, they _have_ to have invented a spell at some point to check bloodlines and parentage."

Hermione stiffened.

"You're talking about dark magic."

Harry regarded her, and sighed.

"There's dark magic, and then there's dark magic," he said. "Some magic is light-aligned, other dark-aligned. It's just a matter of where they fit on the spectrum. The Ministry has muddled all this by grouping everything they don't like under 'dark' magic and making it synonymous with evil. There's a difference between magic that is purely dark, and magic that is malicious in intent, or intrisically wrong. Besides," he pointed out, "I'm not entirely certain that everything you and I do can't be classified as dark magic, the way we seem to have this weird affinity to death and thestrals and things."

Hermione was still watching him uncertainly. He could tell from the look on her face that she agreed with his logic, but was having trouble getting past all the notions about light and dark she'd been raised with, from muggle concepts of good and evil to the bias of the wizarding world.

"All right," Hermione said, still not quite certain, but determined to get to the bottom of things. "We can have a look. I'm sure the Black library must have something on the subject, if anywhere does."

**o0o o0o o0o**

It took several days before they were able to snoop around in the Black library. There was something wrong, Harry thought, with having to sneak around in your own library, but the Order members were adamant that it was full of dark books and it wasn't safe for any of the 'children' to go in there. He didn't think complete freedom to go in his library was worth the fight that would ensue' instead, he and Hermione waited until the house was near-empty and everyone else was occupied, then snuck into the library.

Harry had never actually been in the library before; he'd never really had reason, and besides, the house had never been his until now.

As Hermione shut the door behind them, he looked around appraisingly.

Unlike the rest of the house, the large room still spoke of wealth; it was dusty, true, but it hadn't fallen into the same state of disrepair, and was still neat and orderly despite the accumulated grime. It sported a thick carpet, and muted green wallpaper decorated with an intricate pattern, and the bookcases were dark mahogany.

There was a scowling portrait on one wall, a man with dark hair and eyes, whose features looked very like Sirius.'

Harry's heart clenched for a moment, before he felt Hermione's cool hand on his arm. He looked down to see her regarding him with concerned brown eyes, and gave a small smile.

The portrait remained still as Harry approached, pretending that it wasn't charmed.

"I'm Harry Potter, current owner of this house," Harry told him. The portrait was still pretending that it wasn't animated, but his eyes moved slightly. Hermione moved up to stand beside Harry, the two of them gazing at the small painting. "We're after some spell or potion that determines bloodlines or parentage."

At this the portrait moved, settling back into his chair and regarding them with his eyelids half-closed.

He spoke.

"Try Chaffinch's _Potions of the Blood_, and Gregorovitch's _Magical Bloodlines_," the portrait said, and went back to being still again.

_Potions of the Blood_ turned out to be both unusually old and large even for an out-of-print potions text, so Hermione took that one to read while Harry found _Magical Bloodlines._

"This seems to be a list of all the pureblood families in Europe," Harry observed, looking through it. "Sort of a Who's Who of pureblood clans, with information about all of them. Might be useful if you turn out to be from a magical family."

"Mm," Hermione agreed, frowning at _Potions of the Blood._ "There's two main options in here. One potion will give you a list of your direct ancestors going back ten generations, but it takes three months to make and is pretty complicated. The other one identifies your family line if you're of maigcal heritage, and only takes a month and a half. If you're one of the 150 families of pure blood then the result will show the symbol from the heraldic badge for your family line. It notes that it's important to know whether that family operates through patriarchal or matriarchal magical descent however, because if you come from both patriarchal and matriarchal lines then whichever line is more magically powerful will dominate the results."

"Right," Harry said, enlightened. "That explains why all the families here have a little picture next to them."

"What kind of symbols are there?" Hermione asked curiously.

"Well…" Harry flipped through the book, looking for families Hermione might be interested in. "The Blacks have a weird sort of cross-shape, the North Star apparently."

He snorted a laugh as he found the Weasleys.

"The Weasley family symbol is a stoat. Potters… Potters are griffins… Malfoys have something called the _fleur de mort_ which looks like a black flower… the Longbottom symbol is a lion… can you think of any others you'd like to know about?"

"How about Dumbledore, or McGonagall?" Hermione suggested. "And there's a Susan Bones in my arithmancy class."

"Dumbledore…" Harry looked it up, "okay, the Dumbledore's symbol is weird. It's a black triangle, '_derived from the heraldic badge of the Peverell line, from whom they are known to be descended_.' The McGonagall's symbol is a set of musical pipes. The Bones… have two crossed human femurs and a sword. I'll lend you the book later so you can go through the families yourself. What do you want to do about the potions?"

"We'll do both, I think," Hermione said thoughtfully. "We can brew them both at once and get the results of the bloodline potion first, so that we can research them while we're waiting on the ancestry potion. I think it's probable that I have magical heritage, considering that my adoptive parents were obliviated, and that I'm under some kind of appearance-altering charm."

"You didn't mention that bit before," Harry pointed out, frowning.

Hermione shrugged.

"I've got the original Hermione's hair type and eye color. The superficial similarities between us are too great to be coincidental," she said, a little shortly. "Do you plan to take the potion as well?"

"Might as well, since we're going to the trouble of making it. Besides, I don't know anything about my family other than my parent's names, really, and I always wondered about my grandparents." Harry cast the _tempus_ charm, checking the time. "If we're finished in here, we'd better rejoin the rest of the household before they wonder where we are. We've been here a while."

"Right," Hermione agreed briskly. She shut _Potions of the Blood_ and held it in her arms. "I think it'd be best if we kept these wrapped in your invisibility cloak until we get back to school, Harry. It should be enough to activate the cloak's enchantment and keep them hidden."

"Good idea," Harry agreed.

They crept from the library as unobtrusively as they had entered, leaving it empty and abandoned once more, the portrait frowning thoughtfully to itself.

Those children had been strangely familiar.

**o0o o0o o0o**

Harry emerged from his room to find Ginny sitting on the steps that led down to the second floor, blocking his way down.

"Morning Harry," Ginny said, without looking around.

Harry blinked, and stood there.

"Why are you sitting on the stairs?"

"Fred and George have booby-trapped the floor at the bottom," Ginny said casually. "I'm waiting for someone else to trigger it so I can get past."

She looked quite unconcerned with the fate of whoever triggered the pranks.

Harry was never sure how to feel about Ginny. She was a true Gryffindor, like the rest of her family, but she had an unscrupulous, ruthless side and would do whatever it took to get what she was aiming for. She could be unexpectedly vengeful, too. She would do anything for the people she cared about, but cross her and she'd turn that same determination to getting you back. She was unpredictable, she was secretive and heaven help anyone who got entangled with her the wrong way, and yet Harry couldn't help but like her enormously.

He could be dim like that.

Where Harry's magic was a bit murky, Ginny's was mostly clear and light, but for a streak of darkness running through it. That was another thing to be wary of, because he'd never felt that in anyone else.

He sat next to her on the stairs, gazing contemplatively at the floor below while brown eyes looked at him with frank interest.

"You wouldn't have warned me, would you?"

Ginny grinned.

"You're the only person who would have thought to ask. Everyone else would have just walked past and gotten caught at the bottom." She looked at him thoughtfully. "You always do know when something's up. I've wondered how."

Harry blinked in surprise.

"I wasn't aware of it," he said honestly.

"I know, it's the most frustrating thing," Ginny said immediately. "Things don't catch you but you don't even notice. It's as though something warns you. I mean, the only sign just now was that I was sitting on the stairs, but you didn't just assume I was sitting there for no reason, you knew something was going on."

"Oh." Harry thought about it. He knew what she meant now. "You just sort of stuck out as not fitting in with everything else somehow." The rest of his surroundings had been all the same, and yet Ginny had felt bright and out of place. He hadn't noticed the feeling, though, until he'd started to think about it. "You're right. It's weird."

He frowned suddenly.

"Is it just me, or has Ron been a bit strange lately?"

Ginny rolled with the subject change easily enough.

"He's always been strange, Harry, I'm surprised you haven't noticed. Boy went around for a month wearing a soup bowl for a hat for a month when I was six, I never did work out why. Mind you, that could have been something to do with Fred and George, like the fear of teddy bears."

"From when they turned his into a spider?" Harry guessed, having heard that part of the story numerous times from Ron, although nothing about a subsequent fear of teddy bears.

"Yeah. Living in the same house as those two gives you some weird psychological issues, I can tell you," Ginny observed.

"Still, something's been up with Ron this summer," Harry persisted. "He's been really odd and moody."

"Oh, that," said Ginny. "He fancies Hermione."

Harry stared in confusion.

"And?"

Ginny sighed long-sufferingly.

"And he thinks you have more of a chance with her of course, you dimwit. That's why."

Harry was horrified and bewildered.

"She's like my sister!"

"No one ever said Ron was logical," Ginny agreed. "But he's jealous."

Harry gave a sigh of frustration.

"I've never understood it," he muttered.

"You're lucky then." Harry glanced at Ginny, startled. She looked wistful. "It's horrible to see something and want it and to know you'll never have it, and have it eat you up inside." Her eyes dropped, then rose again to meet his. "You're lucky," she repeated.

Ginny stood suddenly.

"Let me know if someone tries to use the stairs," she said. "I want to watch."

And she left, leaving Harry to sit by himself on the stairs.

He was certain he'd missed something important there, although he couldn't for the life of him work out what it was.

He wondered if Hermione would know. She was brilliant like that.

He didn't know what he'd do without her, he mused.

Standing, Harry leaned over the banisters and glanced down. Putting one hand firmly on the wood, he vaulted over it, landing on the floor below with a loud thump.

Time to find Hermione, he thought, never noticing the annoyed looks being sent his way by two people under Disillusionment charms standing in the hallway, who had been waiting hopefully for someone to walk up or down the stairs.

-

END CHAPTER

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